So many internal TV capture cards - help?

[csecu]

I'm looking for an internal TV capture card to record from my VCR. I've looked at what seems like a hundred models but I can't tell what's good and what isn't. I'm not overly concerned with image quality. Preferably, I'd like to buy a (slightly) used card for under $50. Please point me in the right direction?

Here are some Hauppage models I've been considering but it's hard to find feature comparison tables for these cards:

Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-1850 (recommended elsewhere but I can't find a single one for sale anywhere)
Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-1800 (widely offered; how does this differ from the 1850?)
Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-1150
Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-1265
Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-2255
Hauppauge WinTV-PVR (models) 150 thru 500 (How do HVR models differ from PVR?)

I'm not married to Hauppauge, though. Other brand recommendations are welcome!

I'm also not sure how much difference having a hardware video encoder makes. I was planning on using VirtualDub to do the encoding.

What I'm working with: Core i7-7700k system with 16GB of RAM and 2X 250GB SSDs on Windows 10. I just bought a cheap used Sony SLV688-HF, which works acceptably plugged into the TV.

[usually_quiet]

You have 16GB of RAM and with a Kaby Lake processor, I'm guessing that you have a 64-bit version of Windows 10.

The Hauppauge WinTV-PVR (models) 150 thru 500 are not good choices, based on your system specs. None have Windows 10 drivers. The PVR-250 and PVR-350 have drivers for Windows 7, but only 32-bit versions. The PVR-150 and PVR-550 have drivers for 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows 7, but they don't work properly if system memory exceeds 4GB.

All of the HVR-series cards have Windows 10 drivers, but I think that only the WinTV 1150 and WinTV-1260/1265 cards use software for encoding, which would allow you to use 3rd party software and lossless codecs for capture. The other HVR-series cards on your list only allow MPEG-2 capture and you must use Hauppauge's WinTV software because they all use an on-board chip for encoding.

[JVRaines]

I like the Osprey 200 series cards (210e or 260e). Not very well known, but they have a lot of pro adjustments in the audio and video drivers. You can get a used card for $100-200 on eBay.